Facebook’s Meta Freezes All Hiring, Warns of Possible Layoffs Due to Economic Turmoil: Reports

Facebook’s Meta has reportedly announced that it would freeze hiring and outlined a new plan to reorganize and cut back its staff for the first time in its history, as the company’s profit growth begins to slow down.

The tech sector has been hit hard this year, as stocks on the NASDAQ and S&P 500 have taken a hit.

The social media giant’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg said on Sept. 29, that he plans to reorganize teams and reduce the company headcount, as sluggish growth begins to affect the social media giant.

This is the first major budget cut since the company first opened in 2004, as the tech firm enters a restructuring process in order to cut expenses and adjust priorities.

The Meta CEO announced the freeze to employees at a weekly Q&A session, according to an employee to CNBC.

“For the first 18 years of the company, we grew quickly basically every year, and then more recently our revenue has been flat to slightly down for the first time,” the CEO told staff.

Zuckerberg said that Meta will shrink in 2023, from a total employee base of more than 83,500 employees as of June 30, after adding 5,700 new employees this year in the second quarter.

There were reports this spring, which suggested that the company would slow down the rate of new hires this year.

Since last week, there have been rumors, that Meta was quietly terminating workers, rather than conducting formal layoffs in an attempt to reduce staff by 10 percent, said a report by The Wall Street Journal.

In the recent weekly Q&A session, Zuckerberg said it was time for Meta to change tact due to an unstable economy.

“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg reportedly told employees, according to Bloomberg.

Zuckerberg admitted that Meta would be slashing budgets for project teams across the board to save costs, despite their profitability.

Some positions will not be replaced, while other workers will be transferred to other teams to fill gaps, or sent to monitor those who are failing their assessments, according to Bloomberg.

Zuckerberg explained to shocked employees that “we want to make sure we’re not adding people to teams where we don’t expect to have roles next year.”... (Read more)

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